Notes: When reading this, there are techniques I use that you may be unfamiliar with, I will pick them out now so that you'll understand later in the text.

Five of these symbols, ~, will be connected at the front of a paragraph to tag it as a flash back. A space between paragraphs means a jump in time. And finally, I use two hyphens to say something off to the side--just like this--and will always follow up with the rest of the sentence. They kind of replace parentheses. If anyone has any complaints, do tell me in detail.

Please read, I promise the story is less boring than my explanations!

The Fallen Ones

Prolog

Those two headbands have been a Godly plague on this earth for who knows how long. It seems hard to believe how they could control man the way they do, that is, until you stop and think about the fabric of humanity. We were tricked into eating that apple, oh yes, but believe me, Eve wasn't so easy to trick, nor was Adam. They may have been more pure than humans today, but trust me, so long as the devil was immortal, those two were doomed to fall into temptation, fall into that knowledge which they had no understanding of.
Now, what does this have to do with the Number One and the Number Two? It's simple really. We chase, kill, bleed, and die for those two headbands because we were born to chase what we shouldn't. Now that we can die, it's apart of our destiny as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to choose how we die. Eating an apple is out of style, but Godlike power and knowledge through wearing a headband, through killing thousands of people as the Number Two--all in the name of revenge or glory--just to die at the hands of Number One? Doesn't that sound like a good enough reason to live?

"What? You wanna die or somethin' kid? Hand over that headband!" Though there was plenty of space for Ochimusa to run, there was no where for him to run to. He looked around himself as the horde encircled his position. They popped up everywhere; from behind trees, shrubs, even from beneath boulders on the hillside, and all had their swords and rifles pointed to the headband around Ochimusa's forehead. He laughed and smiled from beneath his sunhat. "Damn, I guess the hat doesn't hide the tails does it?" The mob burst into laughter as the streaming headband's ends whipped with the wind to Ochimusa's front, confirming their presence.
Ochimusa laughed as well and raised his hands, jokingly, to quell the crowd's uproar. "Alright, alright, just raise your hand if you really really want the headband." The crowd simmered down as he made his request. "Oh, but only if you really want it…" Most of the group was confused by Ochimusa's words, but one man raised his middle finger joyfully. "Right here bitch! Come on and wrap it around my forehead, or I'll make-" Ochimusa drew his blade and rushed forward with blinding speed. He swiped at the finger and it flipped to the ground in a bloody twirl. The man pulled his hand back in shock, but then froze. As his hand bled out, his cheeks began to bleed as well. He opened his mouth to gasp, but an arrow of blood shot forth and to the ground with a splut. As he fell to his side, his head from the nose up slid over and off the rest of his head. With the wet slosh of a fallen ally, the crowd surrounding Ochimusa boomed with a battle cry and rushed forward.
"Alright, if you really want it that bad…"
Ochimusa leapt to the air, dodging the first wave of bullets. He threw his legs out, smashing into a few mouths and crushing them against his wooden sandals. He drew his blade as he landed and sliced away two attackers. The entire crowd hesitated, including the gunmen, but Ochimusa was quick to continue his strike. He leapt to the air and spun, his heel sending a swordsman spinning to his left. Ochimusa landed and continued his spin with a slash. He smiled and screamed at the three he had cut. They yelped in fear, and then--after their arms fell off--their torsos split with them to the ground. "Ha! You guys are fun! Hey, when's-" Ochimusa heard a gunshot behind him and spun around with a smile. "There it is!" He quickly raised his blade and brought it down. The bullet and the sword wailed from the stress, but the bullet gave first, breaking off in two.
Ochimusa listened, and after he heard two foreheads split, he saw the two jets of blood spurt forward on either side of him. The gunman shouted an apology to his fallen comrades before Ochimusa rushed him. He jumped on the gunman's shoulders and broke his neck with a kick. As the gunman crumbled underneath himself, Ochimusa slipped behind him, stealing his rifle. A few bullets stuck into the gunman, and Ochimusa returned the fire. Three heads unfurled in a flower of crimson and white before falling limply to the rocks they stood on. Ochimusa speared the gun toward a swordsman. The bayonet stuck into his eye socket, and Ochimusa took his sweet time climbing up the hillside. "Whoo! Can't you guys slow down a second! I may be Number Two, but I'm no God! And after all it's such a hot day, I-"
One last gunman leapt from behind a boulder, his two pistols drawn and aimed. "Yes! I'm gonna be Number Two! Die mother fucker!" He shot several times, screaming ecstatically, and after his twelve shots were spent, he eyed the perfectly still Ochimusa. Realizing that several men behind Ochimusa were dead, but not Ochimusa himself, the quick shot held his pistols up to look at them astonished. Ochimusa's blade shot forward and hit flesh. He laughed and turned to face the few remaining swordsman. As two hands, two guns, and a head tumbled down a smooth rock next to him, he bowed and sheathed his blade.
"Thank you, thank you…and then there were five!" The men stood their ground as Ochimusa casually made his way down the hillside toward them. "Either you all are alive because you really are good swordsman--if so, then I applaud you for that--or you stand before me because you couldn't even muster up the courage the come near me during the scuffle. Now, I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, but I don't recall seeing any of your faces, so, toot toot, I'm assuming my second guess was right." The five warriors stood spooked, two of them were sweating profusely, while the other three were a little more collected, but Ochimusa could very well see that they all were terrified, not happy, to see the Number Two headband flowing lithely before them. Ochimusa coughed at the awkward silence and put his hands up in a fake boxing stance. "Alright now, all of you, like you really want the headband!"

"Bleck! What is this?" Ochimusa pulled a clump of bloody hair from his sandal and flung it to the side. He grimaced at the mess it landed on, but laid back indifferently on the warm rock. He placed his hand to the sun, trying to look at the beautiful blue sky. "Huh, my story might actually play out just like his…but I still wonder…"

"…How alike are Afro Samurai and I?"